Basin Electric members and tribal members testify at RUS hearing

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The proposed north Killdeer loop will deliver power into member cooperative McKenzie Electric Cooperative’s service territory.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative - January 17, 2014

John Skurupey, McKenzie Electric CEO and general manager, testifies in favor of Basin Electric's proposed north Killdeer loop transmission line segment.

Representatives of Basin Electric member cooperatives testified in favor of a proposed Basin Electric transmission project in the Williston Basin at a public hearing held by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Jan. 16 in Watford City, ND.

Basin Electric plans to build, operate and maintain an approximately 278-mile 345-kilovolt (kV) transmission project from Antelope Valley Station (AVS) to Neset in western North Dakota. The RUS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is considering funding the project and is preparing an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project.

The Jan. 16 hearing gave the public an opportunity to comment on a supplemental draft EIS that evaluates an additional transmission line segment that would interconnect with the previously proposed AVS to Neset project at a switchyard near Killdeer, ND. The project, called the north Killdeer loop, includes 60 miles of 345-kV transmission line and two substations that will deliver power into member cooperative McKenzie Electric Cooperative’s service territory.

About 20 people attended the Jan. 16 hearing. Representing Basin Electric Basin Electric were Curt Pearson, manager of media and community relations; Kelly Suko, property and right of way project coordinator; and Cris Miller, senior environmental project administrator. Basin Electric members Claire Vigesaa, Upper Missouri G & T Electric Cooperative manager, and John Skurupey, McKenzie Electric CEO and general manager, testified at the hearing.

Skurupey said that the cooperative’s rapid growth warrants construction of the additional line segment.

“Without this additional north Killdeer loop, members who may want additional electricity or new members wanting electricity at a new home site, water well or commercial location will eventually be refused service for the sake of keeping the lights on for those who are currently being served,” Skurupey said. “This is not a futuristic prediction but rather a road we’re traveling and a stop sign we’re already slowing down for.”

Several members of North Dakota Native American tribes and a member of the Killdeer Mountain Alliance spoke against the proposed route of the AVS to Neset line at the hearing. As proposed, the line would run south of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield State Historic Site, though cross about 27 square miles of a proposed study of privately-owned lands near the designated historic site.

The north Killdeer loop project requires authorization from the North Dakota Public Service Commission and several federal and state agencies to move forward in the federal EIS process. Basin Electric plans to start construction on the transmission line segment in 2016, with the line in service in 2017.

The public comment period ends Feb. 3. Written comments on the scope of the EIS should be sent todennis.rankin@wdc.usda.gov or:

Mr. Dennis Rankin, environmental protection specialist
USDA, Rural Utilities Service
1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Stop 1571
Washington, DC 20250-1571

The supplemental draft EIS is available at www.rurdev.usda.gov/UWP-AVS-Neset.html.

http://www.basinelectric.com/News_Center/Publications/News_Briefs/basin-electric-members-and-tribal-members-testify-at-rus-hearing.html

The Final stages for Basin Electric's Transmission Line

The Final stages for Basin Electric's Transmission Line

Posted: Jan 17, 2014 12:06 PM CSTUpdated: Jan 17, 2014 12:27 PM CST

 

Last November, we visited the Killdeer Battlefield historical site, which is at the center of a new controversy. Basin Electric proposed to run a transmission line from its coal power plant in Beulah to Williston.

But that route would place the transmission line within 2 miles of that site, and run near the Killdeer Mountains.

Basin Electric and USDA Rural Utility Services, has already met with the public in Watford City, on the proposed transmission line. But if you couldn't make it to the meeting, the USDA still wants to hear your comments.

"There's still time. There are a lot of ways people can do that. They can email and give information but what's really important is that there are alternatives and I think people need to talk about and tell the agency and Basin Electric that there are other ways to do this," says Dakota Resource Council director, Don Morrison.

Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk says the project is in the final stages before a decision can be made. He says it's just a matter of finalizing an environmental impact study.

"The commission held three different hearings around the state and during those hearings we received in put from the public the computer made their case as to why this power line is needed so we completed the hearings. After the hearings we were quite honestly waiting for some information from some of the different concerned groups we received all that information now and we have work sessions set up in early February and I'm anticipating a decision sometime this spring, it will make for a very detailed process," says Public Service Commissioner, Brian Kalk. 

The PSC has a draft of the environmental impact statement. Once that's finalized, the commission will use it, along with public testimony and other materials, to make its decision.

Published: September 12, 2013 8:38:02 PM CDT

Power-hungry Oil Patch creates need for controversial power line

Amy Dalrymple, Forum News Service

WILLISTON, N.D. – The need for power in oil-producing counties is projected to grow more than 1,000 megawatts by 2025, but a proposed transmission line to deliver that electricity is drawing environmental and cultural concerns.
The Public Service Commission held a third and final hearing Thursday in Williston on Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s proposed 197-mile transmission line to meet the power demands in the Oil Patch.
The 345-kilovolt transmission line starts at the Antelope Valley Station near Beulah, heads west through Killdeer, north through Williston and ends at a substation near Tioga.
Connie Triplett, a state senator from Grand Forks who also serves with the grassroots group the Badlands Conservation Alliance, asked commissioners to send Basin Electric back to the drawing board.
Triplett said the company should find an alternative that avoids sensitive areas such as the Badlands, the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area and the area outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Triplett said the peace and solitude of the national park is already being disturbed by construction, oil wells and natural gas flaring outside the park boundaries.
“A gigantic power line is just another thing in a long line,” Triplett said. “At some point, the cumulative effect adds up to a greatly diminished experience.”
Anne Marguerite Coyle, biology professor for Jamestown College who has researched golden eagles in the Killdeer area, testified that the transmission line would have a high impact on wildlife in the area. In particular, the route is a dense nesting area for golden eagles, Coyle said.
Cris Miller, environmental administrator for Basin Electric, said the company is working to minimize the environmental and cultural impact of the project. The amount of land that will be permanently lost after the project is complete is 1 acre, Miller said.
Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak pointed out that the word “loss” is subjective and others may view it differently than Miller.
Basin Electric has committed to relocate a proposed substation that would have been in the study area to determine the boundaries of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield.
“It was the responsible thing to do,” said Curt Pearson, a company spokesman.

Published September 04, 2013, 08:24 AM

Hearing to be held on Killdeer Mountains power line

KILLDEER, N.D. — Basin Electric Power Cooperative will have to answer to a lot of angry people at a public hearing in Killdeer today.

By: Katherine Lymn, Forum News Service

• Rob Sand

In this Aug. 15 photo, conservationist Rob Sand discusses the Killdeer Mountains and the threats they face from oil. Now, the Killdeer Mountain Alliance is fighting another foe — a proposed power line the group says would go right through the historic Killdeer Mountain Battlefield site.

KILLDEER, N.D. — Basin Electric Power Cooperative will have to answer to a lot of angry people at a public hearing in Killdeer today.

The company, citing booming oil development and its ripple effects, has proposed a new transmission line that would go through the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield site, alarming many.

The $300 million project would route a 200-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line from the existing Antelope Valley Station near Beulah, west through Killdeer and then north through Williston, ending at a substation near Tioga.

It would run through the boundaries of a National Park Service study led by North Dakota State University history professor Tom Isern, who characterizes the battlefield as the most significant historic site in the state.

The 1864 Battle of Killdeer Mountain was a faceoff between native Dakota and Lakota fighters and Brig. Gen. Alfred Sully’s forces. With more than 2,000 fighters on each side, Isern said, “it’s the largest military engagement ever to take place on the Great Plains.”

For its entire nine-state service area, Basin projects needing to grow by more than 1,600 megawatts by 2025 — and 1,000 megawatts of that is just for oil-related growth.

“There’s a lot of demand being placed on everybody because of what’s going on in western and northwestern North Dakota,” Basin spokesman Daryl Hill said. “This is just one part of the challenges everybody faces to cope or to keep up with this oil development that’s occurring.”

Hill said an archeologist Basin hired didn’t see anything of significance in a preliminary survey, but Basin only recently learned of the NDSU study, so “this isn’t the end of the story.”

Basin spokeswoman Mary Miller cautioned, though, that Basin has had this route planned for a while and it’s not the company’s intent to move the line.

Some opponents of the project have questioned whether Basin’s archeologist did a thorough enough look at the project site.

Conservationist Rob Sand, who lives near the site and fights for the mountain’s preservation with the Killdeer Mountain Alliance, said the battlefield is not just a one-acre site with a monument on it, but in fact “covers a great deal of area.”

“Unfortunately it had to be a citizens’ group that noticed it and put it together,” he said.

“I think [Basin] looked at each spot where they were gonna put a power pole and just did a minimal survey — a required survey — of that and didn’t look at the big picture,” Sand said.

Public Service Commission Chair Brian Kalk said the size of this project is the reason for three different public hearings — Tioga and Williston will also have hearings on Thursday and Thursday, Sept. 12, respectively.

“Of all the things that we do, power lines are by far the most difficult and the most contentious,” he said.

The PSC can’t tell a company how to do a project, but it can reject an application and explain why, Kalk said.

Sand said he’s also concerned with what the power lines would do to the viewscape.

“This is a real serious problem and needs to be resolved,” Sand said, “and I’m sure hoping that Basin Electric and the Public Service Commission will see this as an opportunity to do the right thing and move it off of the battlefield for sure but also look at the whole viewscape of the Killdeer Mountains.”

Kalk encouraged members of the public to bring their own recommendations for the project if they’re unhappy with the current plan.

This project is the latest in a series of apparent threats to the Killdeer Mountains, as oil development seeped in and the alliance has been working to stop further drilling.

“It’s pretty overwhelming to try to even think what’s gonna happen because [the mountains] could easily just be covered with oil wells and with roads and with power lines,” Sand said.

“We have to be hopeful that there can be some kind of a sensitive resolution to these problems.”

The public hearing will be at Killdeer City Hall, 165 Railroad St. SE at 9:30 MDT

- See more at: http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/15863/#sthash.8ol2UNEB.dpuf

http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/15863/

Making the case for Killdeer Mountains

3 hours ago  •  By ROB SAND and LORI JEPSON Killdeer

We are deeply concerned that Basin Electric Power Cooperative is proposing to construct new transmission lines and a 12-acre substation along the south face of the Killdeer Mountains. We are asking the Public Service Commission to reject this location for the following reasons:

-- The Killdeer Mountains are important to all North Dakotans for historic, archaeological, environmental, cultural and recreational reasons.

-- The mountains are one of 40 sites recently identified by Gov Jack Dalrymple and the Industrial Commission as deserving special protection.

-- The mountains hold deep significance for the Mandan, Hidatsa, Lakota, Dakota and other local tribes.

-- The proposed transmission line would negatively impact the view and experience of the Killdeer Mountains from surrounding highways, one of which is a North Dakota Scenic Byway.

-- The proposed line would pass within the boundaries of the historic Killdeer Mountain Battlefield as identified by the National Park Service. The substation and part of the transmission line would be in the core battlefield area.

-- Basin Electric’s archaeological finding of “no significant cultural sites” was based on the state Historic Preservation Office records for the battlefield boundaries, which are currently being updated and amended.

-- Funding has recently been approved for a major two-year study of the Killdeer Mountain Battlefield area. North Dakotans deserve to know the outcomes of this study before a decision is made that impacts the area.

-- Basin Electric now wants approval of a second transmission line to meet the needs of the oil and gas industry, and that second line is the alternative listed in its original proposal. This means its proposal no longer includes the “range of reasonable alternatives” required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

-- In addition, the entire environmental impact statement required by NEPA is still in draft stage and should be completed before a final decision is made.

For these reasons, we are asking the PSC to reject the present proposal. We invite anyone else who is concerned about this to voice their concerns at the Public Service Commission hearing at Killdeer City Hall today  at 9:30 a.m. MDT, or write directly to the Public Service Commission.

(Rob Sand and Lori Jepson are coordinators for the Killdeer Mountain Alliance.)

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/opinion/mailbag/making-the-case-for-killdeer-mountains/article_63a17336-1507-11e3-b44a-0019bb2963f4.html